Discuss anything and everything related to the Transformers Live Action Films franchise, which are directed by Michael Bay. Transformers 3 is scheduled to be released on July 1st, 2011. Check out our Live Action Film section here.

Brian Goldner, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hasbro, revealed today a temporary logo for Michael Bay's Transformers 4 along with some minor plot details as part of the UBS Best Of Americas 2012 Conference. TFW2005, reporting from the event (via Bleeding Cool), learned that, while Transformers: Dark of the Moon scored at the box office, it failed to sell as many toys as the company had hoped.

"This is why 'Transformers 4' will have a new cast of [robot] characters," Goldner explained, "and it will be a story revolving around these new characters."

This certainly matches comments made by Bay earlier this year that also seemed to hint that the fourth adventure may take the story into outer space.

Ehren Kruger is drafting the screenplay with a planned release date of June 27, 2014.

It seems that the story for Transformers 4 will be heading in a new direction. President and CEO of Hasbro Brian Goldner spoke at the UBS Best Of Americas 2012 Conference (via TFW2005 and Bleeding Cool) where he discussed the company's plans for the future, including what they've got in store for the Transformers film series.

While Transformers: Dark of the Moon did well at the box office ($1.1 billion worldwide) it didn't do so well at the one thing these kind of films are made for...selling toys. With this idea in mind, the company wants the fourth film to include an all new cast of robot characters with a story revolving around them (so they can sell more toys). This isn't a totally shocker as Michael Bay has said previously that the film will feature 'an all new cast,' thought we never interpreted that to mean the robots too. Economically this decision makes sense for Hasbro and, frankly, weren't we all getting a little tired of seeing the same old Autobots fighting the Decepticons? Maybe now they can bring in the much longed-for Dinobots.

The fourth film is currently being penned by Ehren Kruger with Bay back as the director. It is said to be a slightly smaller film in budget than the previous movie and Bay hopes to have some of it take place 'off planet.' Bay also says this will be his last outing in the director's chair for Transformers and that he's making way for a new director to take over the 'new trilogy.'

So does this mean no Optimus and Bumblebee? Last I heard they were going to be in it. It looks like they still don't know the DotM toyline was a flop because Hasbro made more redundant Bumblebee figures instead of releasing the ones people actually wanted. Like Soundwave, Leadfoot, Wheeljack, and leader class Megatron and Shockwave.

NewFoundStarscreamLuv wrote:me and my friends combine all the time. Sometimes I even combine by myself if no one is around.

Evil_the_Nub wrote: they still don't know the DotM toyline was a flop because Hasbro made more redundant Bumblebee figures instead of releasing the ones people actually wanted. Like Soundwave, Leadfoot, Wheeljack, and leader class Megatron and Shockwave.

My thoughts exactly. Combine that with the declining quality of the plastic, and of course sales will be down. Parents don't want to buy toys that break after a week. And collectors are already wary of Hasbro's shenanigans.

I don't know about anyone else, but I passed on a lot of DOTM figs because many were simply poorly designed (Mothra Prime...meh) and totally out of scale (cyberverse Dreads, leader fricking class Bumblebee).

Give me a leader class Megatron and Shockwave (designed by the same guy who did ROTF LC Optimus), a decent deluxe Soundwave and voyager Dreads, and I'd buy the hell out of them.

How on earth did Hasbro come to the conclusion that it was the characters' fault?

Rodimus Prime wrote:TFW2005, reporting from the event (via Bleeding Cool), learned that, while Transformers: Dark of the Moon scored at the box office, it failed to sell as many toys as the company had hoped.

Maybe that's 'cause, instead of giving us the figures we actually wanted, you gave us thirty iterations of the same figures we already had, and keeping the stuff we wanted either out of reach or somewhere we had no hope of ever finding it.

I wonder if it ever occurred to Hasbro that maybe the best way to ensure high toy sales is to make sure your product actually gets out there to be bought…

oh... my... not Bay again... last I heard he wasn't going to touch the Transformers anymore... oh man... this is not good... even though I watched all 3 movies he did just for the love of the Transformers, I thought he did a crappy job, I'm not saying I could of done better, I hate judging but when you mess up something that I (million others) really like... not cool man..., and he's about to mess up TMNT as well! haha the movie toys were just nasty ugly in my oponion, but lets see maybe this time Hasbro/Bay will not F up, but I understand Hasbros point of view, when they see Bay and Transformers all they see is , sad but true, hopefully this time around they'll add some cool characters, bring the dinos, insecticons, rodimus and ultra magnus, and give us better toys! I'm not going to cry if they don't, but I'm a collector and I like cool/good stuff... so cmon Hasbro, think about the fans/collectors and not your wallets for a minute, either way I'm sure you'll make millions...

What people seem to forget is that Hasbro probably only thinks about one age demographic, most likely children and not adult collectors, which is why they don't go out of their way to make figures that are high quality and always range in cost from 10 to 40 bucks. Kids go to the toy isle and bug mom or dad for a TF toy and they get it for them because they are cheap price wise.

Think about who buys the big third party figures, usually a collector willing to shell out over 100 bucks on a single figure that is roughly the size of a figure that costs a third of the price. Why? Because it's awesome, and you'd probably never see Hasbro make something like it ever. It's not gunna be some parent looking for TF toys for their 10 year old's birthday present (unless they are the super cool parents). Imagine if Hasbro put out quality stuff like that? First of all they'd probably charge more than what a third party would charge, which would then lead to their sales being even worse.

If a kid tells their mom or dad they want a Bumblebee, they probably have no idea when they see the "Night Ops" version on the rack that it's basically the same thing as the last with a different paint scheme. Kids have no sense of which figures are more rare or most wanted by adult collectors, they just want a new toy to play with and probably end up breaking anyways so mommy and daddy can get them a new one two weeks later.

tl;dr Hasbro wants to make the kids happy, and wants to troll us collectors